Pain Medicine (OnlineEarly) is now available by subscription only.

Articles include:
“Toward a More Empathic Relationship in Pain Medicine” by John D. Banja, PhD, 18-Jun-2008
“Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use by Primary Care Patients with Chronic Pain” by Eric I. Rosenberg, MD, MSPH, Inginia Genao, MD, Ian Chen, MD, MPH, Alex J. Mechaber, MD, Jo Ann Wood, MD, MSEd, Charles J. Faselis, MD, James Kurz, MD, Madhu Menon, MD, Jane O’Rorke, MD, Mukta Panda, MD, Mark Pasanen, MD, Lisa Staton, MD, Diane Calleson, PhD, and Sam Cykert, MD, 18-Jun-2008
“Ethical Decision-Making: Do Anesthesiologists, Surgeons, Nurse Anesthetists, and Surgical Nurses Reason Similarly?” by Alex Cahana, MD, DAAPM, FIPP, MEthics, Henrik Weibel, MAS, and Samia A. Hurst, MD, 30-Jul-2007

Sociology of Health & Illness (OnlineEarly) is now available by subscription only.

Articles include:
“New reproductive technologies, genetic counselling and the standing of the fetus: views from Germany and Israel” by Yael Hashiloni-Dolev and Noga Weiner, 19-Jun-2008
“Men, masculine identities, and health care utilisation” by Jack H. Noone and Christine Stephens, 18-Jun-2008
“Approaches to methadone treatment: harm reduction in theory and practice” by Margaretha Järvinen, 18-Jun-2008
“Towards a sociology of disease” by Stefan Timmermans and Steven Haas, 18-Jun-2008
“Waking up to sleepiness: Modafinil, the media and the pharmaceuticalisation of everyday/night life” by Simon J. Williams, Clive Seale, Sharon Boden, Pam Lowe and Deborah Lynn Steinberg, 28-Apr-2008
“The embryo as moral work object: PGD/IVF staff views and experiences” by Kathryn Ehrich, Clare Williams and Bobbie Farsides, 28-Apr-2008
“Biomedicine, holism and general medical practice: responses to the 2004 General Practitioner contract” by Kath Checkland, Stephen Harrison, Ruth McDonald, Suzanne Grant, Stephen Campbell and Bruce Guthrie, 28-Apr-2008

Aging Cell (OnlineEarly) is now available by subscription only.

Articles include:
“Stem Cell Review Series: Aging of the skeletal muscle stem cell niche” by Suchitra D. Gopinath and Thomas A. Rando, June 17, 2008
“Stem Cell Review Series: Regulating highly potent stem cells in aging: environmental influences on plasticity” by Jay M. Edelberg and Victoria L. T. Ballard, June 17, 2008

A study at the University of South Florida has shown that transplants of mononuclear human umbilical cord blood (MNChUCB) cells may help patients suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. A disease in which the motor neurons in the spinal cord and brain degenerate, ALS leaves its victims with progressive muscle weakness, paralysis and, finally, respiratory failure three to five years after diagnosis. (ScienceDaily)

Governor Bobby Jindal has signed into law legislation that would ban government funding in Louisiana for what is sometimes called “therapeutic cloning.” (Houma Today)

Direct-to-consumer genetic-testing companies who were served cease-and-desist letters by the state of California responded this week. Some insisted that they are in compliance with state laws, and others closed their doors to Californians. Both 23andMe and Navigenics, two high-profile, California-based startups offering a new breed of genome-wide screening services, say that they will continue to operate in the state. (Technology Review)

Unlike these older, more popular therapies, Vet-Stem offers — for the time being — better medicine to animals than any allowed for their owners: even though it does not use controversial embryonic stem cells, the fatty-tissue stem-cell transplant has not yet secured FDA approval for use in humans. But pets are reaping the benefits in droves. (TIME)

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced that five to ten academic health science centres will be established. It will see teaching hospitals working alongside university research departments to “benefit each other in the years to come”. (UKTI Today)

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued Re-examination Certificates for the two most important base embryonic stem cell patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). (Capital Times)

This weekend, The Methuselah Foundation, is sponsoring its first U.S. conference on the emerging interdisciplinary field that [Aubrey] de Grey has helped kick start. (Its first day, Friday, will be free and open to the public.) The conference, Aging: The Disease - The Cure - The Implications, held at UCLA, is an indication of how far de Grey has come in mainstreaming his ideas. (Wired)

Fertility experts have called for a dramatic cut in the number of twins born after IVF treatment.

IVF clinics in the UK will be expected to reduce the number of multiple births from a national average of one in four to 10% over the next three years. (BBC)

FEDERAL Parliament could soon find itself grappling once more with euthanasia after the leaders of both major parties gave permission for a conscience vote on the issue. (Sydney Morning Herald)

Whether for religious or cultural reasons, some Americans don’t like mixing money and body parts. Some just don’t trust the health care system and fear being rushed off to their maker prematurely if they indicate a willingness to be a donor — a fear not likely to be assuaged if paying for organs makes people worth more dead than alive. (MSNC)

The government is thinking of enacting a law to regulate surrogacy in a bid to make the deal struck between the prospective parents and the woman lending her womb legally binding on both sides. (The Telegraph)